


Stay Home

by jattendrai



Category: Mother 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 23:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15739803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jattendrai/pseuds/jattendrai
Summary: “ Yeah. We must’ve spent like, hours down in the basement doing jack shit,” Their mother never liked Claus’ use of foul words, but it never stopped him, “ It’s not like we do anything as a family, anyway. Well, except me and you.”





	Stay Home

**Author's Note:**

> this was partially inspired by listening to Transit and being sad ha

The room was cold when he woke up.

It was that icy winter morning, when everything in the room was still and cold and the only warmth could be found from his own body. The sun wasn’t up yet but it was that predawn glow that hit the snow and radiated in through the only window, a cast of pure, white light burning the outside.

It feels like there’s something inside his chest but he’s too tired to dig it out; instead opting to stare up at the ceiling and let it reside. He can’t remember if it’s Saturday or Sunday. There’s a dead silence to the world, and he can’t even hear his own breathing, as if there volume on the world had been dialed down to zero.

It’s getting harder to sleep. Harder to breathe.

There’s a knock at his door and he makes no attempt to answer it. It opens by itself and the hallway is pitch black for a moment before a face before out of it, one that looks exactly like his own but shades paler and with a lot more freckles on its face. It was Claus.

“ You awake?”

“ Yeah,” They’re both quiet, like it’s christmas morning and they caught sight of the present in the basement but too early to wake their parents.

“ It snowed last night, so school is cancelled. The roads near our house are all closed.”

It must be Monday. Weird, he couldn’t remember the weekend at all, it must’ve been wasted away playing video games in the basement with his brother and doing homework. The trace feeling of winter vacation still lingers in the air, though.

“ You alright?” Claus opens the door a bit wider so he could enter the room, “ You seem out of it.”

“ I’m fine.”

Claus walked over to his bed and did a jump-sit, his impact temporarily startling Lucas it shook the bed. His back was to the window on the opposite side, and the pure white glow faded his edges to where he looked…. Almost like a ghost to Lucas. He was slouching, hands on the edge of the bed, looking at him.

“ C’mon, fess up.”

“ I just… miss vacation.”

Claus chuckled, “ Yeah, same. It felt like it never happened honestly. I can’t even remember what we did for those two weeks.”

“ You too?” The feeling in his chest only crawled down into his stomach, weighing him at his waist instead. Lucas turned his head on his pillow so he could get a better look at Claus.

“ Yeah. We must’ve spent like, hours down in the basement doing jack shit,” Their mother never liked Claus’ use of foul words, but it never stopped him, “ It’s not like we do anything as a family, anyway. Well, except me and you.”

He let out a little laugh of his own, “ Yeah.”

Their parents never were much for family vacations or outings; they weren’t even seen in the grocery store as one big family, it was either Haniwa and them or just Flint. Mainly due to work, mostly due to Flint being out of the house for long periods of time. Every picture of them above the mantle was spread out and isolated.

Everything still felt cold and quiet, Lucas realized. Even with his brother on his bed he found himself still alone in the room, and every moment of pause between words was just as silent as when he wasn’t there at all. Maybe the cold was getting to him.

“ Oh, wait,” Claus face lit up, “ I remember one thing. Me and mom went out yesterday while you were asleep.”

It was that sudden feeling, like whatever was in his stomach balled up before melting together and spreading itself so that it filled up his insides entirely, a warmth against the cold that only made him sick, like something inside him caught on fire. 

“ We took the truck out into town,”

He was back to staring up at the ceiling again, but his eyes were closed.

“ And we hit a patch of black ice on the street,” Claus laughed again.

“ Please stop talking,” Lucas begged, and the world turned quiet once more. It finally dawned on him what was happening, why the light of the morning was too bright and why his covers felt as if they weren’t there; why he couldn’t hear the birds sing or the snowplow moving down their small suburban street to scrape off all the freshly fallen snow from the driveways; why he couldn’t hear Boney move downstairs or his break creak with every movement like it usually does.

Nothing exists in the dark that wasn’t there in the light, no matter how hard he wanted to believe otherwise; that’s just how it is.

“ Claus?” He called out.

“ Yeah,” A reply, but Lucas didn’t look at him. His eyes were still shut. He didn’t even know if they were ever really open.

“ Please leave.”

“ Lucas ---”

“ Please,” He finally found his words, “ You don’t have to keep doing this. I’m fine now, I don’t need to be watched over by my brother anymore,” He covered his eyes with his arm to keep from crying, though he knew he managed that fault long ago. It was habit at that point. “ You don’t need to look after me anymore. Please. Just leave.”

There was no movement of the bed. No sound of feet shuffling across the floor, or a door softly being pulled shut. There was nothing in the silence to assure him of his leave, but deep down he knew that he wasn’t even there to begin with. 

Slowly sound returned to him, and the world was brought out of the cold; his heartbeat, fast and heavy, thumped in his chest; his fingers frozen, the sound of a plow dragging across ice and concrete, the muffled noise of a washing machine turning it’s cycle below him.

When he opened his eyes again, Claus was gone.

He’s been gone for almost three years now, but this time for good.


End file.
